houston, we have so many problems
by ascxndent
Summary: there's scars to account for and sleepless nights, wounds that will never heal and topics that are off limits. she still doesn't even know his name but just might be a little bit in love and maybe, just maybe, they can make it. ( or; the one where tua and inquisitor are marred survivors on the run; a drabble series )


note: wanted to write a series of random one-shots for a vague, happier-ish au where my two favorites are alive and fending together against the entire galaxy. i _may_ get around to eventually writing an actual, detailed series for this au – you know, where an actual logical explanation is provided – but for now can leave it off as they're alive because fuck you that's why. so for now enjoy my gross emotional spillage of writing and short, sporadic, episodic-like updates.

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They're survivors with the scars to account for every single reason as to why they're not supposed to be.

Because – call it fate, call it luck, call it _unlucky_ – neither was apparently permitted to die on their fateful days; not when there was a voice within him, livid and roaring and agonizing, _screaming_ and summoning unwilling, dwindling strength in his limbs to drag himself out from the fires threatening to consume him whole. Not for her either, not when surrounding debris that was originally her escape plan seems to have shielded her from the clutches of certain death, leaving her unconscious, buried, suffocating, _screaming_ without a voice.

Her skin will never truly heal, not really, no matter how much time may pass. And it isn't to say he's left off in any better of a condition – there isn't a variety in how much worse third degree burns, already the worst of the worst, can be – but he finds himself worrying over her instead, as always and usual. Her bare skin is a mixed blemish of raw reddish and olive skin, between scars that once were blisters and blackened, and sometimes a fresh bleeding cut or two that appears anyhow because of how delicate her skin is these days. And the moments spent observing these wounds, sensing the constant pain she's learned to simply _tolerate_ with, it leaves him with these foreign thoughts that she's as fragile as flimsi - finds himself _worrying_ for this supposed fragility she carries – and dismisses it with the excuse that she is the only company he has left, and to lose her would mean a life of solitude which is suddenly so… frighteningly unappealing.

Except it isn't foreign, he knows what this is and _despises_ it, is repulsed and denies its presence.

(He isn't supposed to _feel_ fear by any form; he was a bringer of it once onto others.)

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She knows. She knows from the way that he looks at her – the ever so subtle glance that's quickly dismissed and denied every time – that he just looks at her and thinks of her as another dead girl. Maybe better off dead or supposed to be dead or, her favorite one – she thinks with a sardonic smile – going to end up dead soon somehow anyways. And she hates it, oh maker how she _hates_ it. She hates how her conscience torments her and reminds her of all her weaknesses, reminds her of the running, pitiful, stupid, _stupid_ girl that ran straight to her doom – as if all her dreams, all her night terrors don't do a good enough job reminding her as she wakes up some nights drenched in sweat and crying – and hates everything she has left that the fires, that the empire didn't take from her.

(There's a reason that she refuses to look at her reflection, and it doesn't just have to do with ugliness.)

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They both used to be something, once. They used to think they had meaning, a sense of belonging and duty – and maybe they had worth, for a time – and they used to be on the wrong side of a brimming war, caught in the turmoil and crossfire. And what are they now? Outcasts and defectors, yes. Survivors? Maybe, only because the term implies success in their actions and there's nothing victorious gained from the scars and nightmares and paranoia that they live with now. They're not quite heroes, no, see she dabbled in the hero's business – for a fair attempt, at least - for a time and look what it did to her. It's a mad, mad galaxy around them that holds itself together by the seams and slowly slips into another inevitable chaotic state.

(But somehow deeming it with a dismissive _'they can all go kill each other'_ sounds a tad inhumane even if it might or might not be their cynical thought process at this point.)

They both used to be more like pawns than people, until it became an ultimatum; the opt-out, as put in term by a conversation between a few officers, or more appropriately regarded as an unthinkable, cowardly choice. But selfish cowardice looked so appealing – for even a few foolish seconds – than returning to his master a failure once again, an unacceptable condition, because surely he couldn't expect to _survive_ that report. He knew what would happen – the answer to his own enigmatic words to the Jedi – a thing worse than death. He knew beforehand, had been left off with ideal warnings and an idea of what would happen.

There are some scars on his body that the flames can't be accounted for, scars that he'll never disclose the origins of to her.

(She figures it out anyways.)

And then she, she who got chewed up and spat out by the empire – a thing so blindly, foolishly devoted towards – she who was deemed useless and accountable for circumstances beyond her control – but the empire, his master, don't take failure for an excuse without a scapegoat of some form to make it more appealing – she, who was destroyed by everything that she ever knew.

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There used to be a bedazzled light in her eyes that burned bright like the stars above, shining with ambiguity and foolish, stupid optimism – stars aren't blinded by their own rays though, are they? – and it was extinguished by the sickening irony of the fires that tried to kill her.

Now there's a lackluster stare in them that's not quite dead but can never be revived to its original vivacious state.

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Sometimes it seems like something is there though, _sometimes_. It's there, if only for a moment, or maybe they're both in a state of delusional reality that it's possible for her to find a reason to ever smile like that ever again.

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"You… should smile more often like that."

"Strange. I don't think I can recall ever seeing a smile of yours."

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(Which, to be fair, can also easily be translated as; _I didn't know it was possible for you to smile at all without it involving inflicting pain onto others._ )

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But it is, she just hasn't seen one yet.


End file.
